Atlantic City Mayor, Wife Charged With Assaulting Teenage Daughter | EUROtoday

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small and his spouse had been charged Monday with abusing and assaulting their teenage daughter on a number of events, together with hitting her within the head with a brush and knocking her unconscious.

The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office mentioned it filed costs in opposition to each mother and father of endangering the welfare of a kid.

Marty Small additionally was charged with making terroristic threats; aggravated assault, and easy assault. La’Quetta Small was moreover charged with three separate counts of easy assault.

The prosecutor’s workplace mentioned in a information launch that “the defendants physically and emotionally abused their 15/16-year-old-daughter on multiple occasions” in December 2023 and January 2024.

It mentioned that in a single incident, Marty Small is alleged to have hit his daughter a number of instances within the head with a brush, inflicting her to lose consciousness. He is also accused of punching his daughter within the legs a number of instances, leaving bruises, and threatening to throw her down a staircase and “smack the weave out of her head,” the discharge mentioned.

LaQuetta Small, who’s Atlantic City’s superintendent of colleges, is accused of punching her daughter a number of instances within the chest, leaving bruises, and punching her within the mouth throughout a separate argument. LaQuetta Small is also accused of dragging her daughter by the hair, and hanging her with a belt on her shoulders, leaving marks, in accordance with the prosecutor’s workplace.

Reached by phone, Small declined remark. He referred a reporter to his lawyer Ed Jacobs, who emphasised that the costs don’t contain public corruption or any impropriety within the mayor’s discharge of his official duties.

Instead, they contain “a private family matter, including the challenges that Mayor Small and his wife have dealt with raising a teenage daughter,” Jacobs mentioned.

The legal professional wouldn’t tackle the substance of the costs relating to the couple’s interactions with their daughter. But mentioned she has not been faraway from their residence.

“This is an intact family,” Jacobs mentioned. “She’s right where she belongs.”

The president and vice chairman of the Atlantic City Board of Education didn’t instantly reply to messages searching for remark Monday.

Both Smalls had been issued summonses with the costs in opposition to them.

Earlier this month, Small held a information convention in City Hall to say {that a} search of his residence in late March concerned “a private family issue,” not against the law.

Small mentioned on the information convention that he and his spouse have been interacting with state youngster welfare authorities and don’t have anything to cover.

“We’re going through family therapy, and that’s what this should be, a family matter,” he mentioned.

A spokesman for the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency, mentioned it can’t publicly focus on its instances to guard the privateness of these concerned.

Small’s spouse and two kids attended the information convention with him however didn’t converse, and left earlier than it was accomplished.